Seagate 750GB SATA2 RAID Review

Introduction:

Are you looking for better performance from your computer? Does it already have all the latest in cutting edge equipment? If so, you may think that getting more performance would be not possible. You must now be thinking how it could be possible. The answer may be a lot simpler than you thought, and that answer is RAID. While seemingly new for many people, RAID has indeed been around for a long time; as far back as when the first SCSI drives released in the 1980s, which in fact helped to pioneer RAID. What is RAID you ask? That is a very good question as most people are usually a bit daunted by RAID. But it is not that scary when you get down to it.

Seagate was kind enough to provide us with two of their top 750 GB SATA2 HDDs to use for this RAID review. Seagate has been a major manufacturer of hard drives since their founding in 1979 with the release of the first 5.25 inch hard drive. These are only some of the major accomplishments that Seagate has achieved while being one of the largest manufacturers of hard drives in the world. Seagate recently acquired Maxtor, so they are now indisputably the leader in Hard Drive manufacturing. We will be taking a unique looking into the basic performance of RAID, as well as the performance of these 750 GB SATA2 HDDs in both single drive and RAIDed configurations.

Closer Look:

Nothing too special about these hard drives, as they are just that…hard drives. Coming packaged in Seagate's clamshell hard plastic boxes is always nice.

The only difference that you might notice is the weight. I would say that they weigh a good 1/3 more than the average hard drive. They also have an extra set of jumpers on the back to enable/disable SATA2 speeds on the drive. Other than those two basic things, the drives look just like any other hard drives.

Installation:

Installation is a little tricky with RAID. I will not be going into the details of RAID installation in this review because of its depth. If you are really interested on the inner workings of RAID, please check out our Raid Guide. I will be using ports 1+2 on this motherboard. To install your two hard drives, secure them into your case with screws or, if available, drive rails. After you plug in the power and data cables, you're good to go. To setup RAID, you will have to follow the instructions for your motherboard or RAID controller. While some people may be daunted, you shouldn't be as installation is really not as difficult as it sounds. Just read your instructions manual, which should outline the steps that need to be taken to get you up and running RAID!

Testing:

Test setup:

Intel Q6600 ES

Intel Bad Axe 2

2 x 1 GB Mushkin XP2-8500

2 x 750 GB Seagate HDD’s

Mushkin 650Watt PSU

Windows XP Pro SP2

For testing, we will be running HD Tach, which gives us a look at the average read speeds, burst speeds, as well as seek times of hard drives. This gives us a very good reading on what the hard drives are capable of. I ran the benchmark on the drives in RAID 0, as well as in a single drive configuration, so that we can have a direct comparison between the two. Earlier this year, we did a review on the single Seagate 750GB HDD, which can be seen here - Seagate 750 GB Barracuda SATA 3.0 GB/s 7200.10

As we can see from these results, the RAIDed hard drives really spank the single drive configuration! With results like these, I don’t see why everyone doesn’t have a RAID 0 setup!

Conclusion:

After seeing these stunning results, it makes me wonder why I have never used a RAID 0 setup before! The sheer performance gains of this setup are absolutely stunning. The most obvious drawback to this type of setup would have to be failure. Since RAID 0 splits files onto both drives, if one of your hard drives die, then you lose all of the data. If this issue doesn't really affect you, then there is no reason NOT to have a RAID 0 setup with these drives. Huge storage space and killer speeds make RAIDing the Seagate SATA2 750s a great choice if you are seeking the ultimate in performance. Seagate also offers a stunning 5 year warranty, which gives you piece of mind when you purchase a Seagate drive. You get not only a good deal, but killer performance to backup your purchase. If you are looking to shave off those extra seconds when loading games or do any kind of CAD work, then these Seagate drives in RAID will be a great choice for you.

This RAID review is an update to the full review of the Seagate Barracuda SATA 3.0/s 7200.10. For more information on the capabilities on the drive itself, take a look at our earlier review.